Paperbacks: fiction and non-fiction

Criticised for not engaging in the revolution he witnessed while in Africa, Willie Chandran returns to his native India and spends seven years as a revolutionary in the forests. Despite this apparent commitment to a cause, Willie remains aimless and fatalistic: even when sentenced to 10 years in prison he tells himself it could have been worse. Willie’s character is the true triumph of this sequel to Half a Life — a wanderer and observer, he comes to understand that idealism leads only to disillusionment. The book expounds a pessimistic worldview, but Naipaul explores the notion that this is the only sane response to the planet’s madness.

(Picador £7.99). IC

FOREVER TODAYby Deborah Wearing

In 1985, Deborah Wearing’s husband, Clive, contracted a rare form of brain damage that completely destroyed his memory. Every few moments it seemed to him that he was just waking from